


Radioactive

by Chiomi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Empathy, M/M, Magic, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he closes that first circle of mountain ash, something wakes in Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radioactive

**Author's Note:**

> More Betty White's Ten Tips For A Long And Happy Life coming as soon as I'm over whatever foul disease I have right now. I have a huge lady-boner for angst and canon-compliance and plot, and those are just not happening while I'm sneezing up my goddamned spleen and coughing all the time. The sheriff isn't fired in this one because my feelings could not take it.
> 
> Title comes from the Imagine Dragons song.
> 
> Much thanks to AlwaysBoth, who is not only a kick-ass beta but also feeds me and shoves medicine at me and kept Radioactive on repeat for like 30 hours while I was writing/getting distracted/trying not to die.

When he traces the line of mountain ash the first time, he can feel an electric hum as the circle closes. It shivers up the powder left pouring out of his hand, and he has no idea how he covered the last fifty feet, but it worked, and he knows it in his bones.

The hum of awareness doesn’t really go away after that: he can feel the change as he breaks the circle, but he can also feel Derek’s desperation.

It’s not like usual, where he sees people’s moods and body language and reacts to that: he feels it as if it’s his own, the rippling burning refusal of fact, the need to rend and tear until every threat is gone.

Stiles doesn’t know how okay he is with that.

He goes to see Doc Deaton the next day after sleeping until noon, to let him know it worked, and also maybe to ask why it feels like there’s distant summer lightning under his skin. He finds the vet in his office, standing at a desk as he makes notations on a chart. He radiates serenity.

He shoves his hands in his back pockets and rocks back on his heels. “So, the mountain ash works.”

Deaton makes a little humming noise. “All it takes is belief.”

“Yeah, about that -”

Deaton throws a bottle to him, and he fumbles it before clutching it two-handed. “It’s time for Tiger to be fed.”

“I - okay.” Stiles huffs out an annoyed breath, but goes to find Tiger. Deaton’s evasive, but he’s going to figure it out with or without his help. He walks back to the animal cages, directly to a kitten, and only wonders how he knew right where to go after he’s opened the door.

Scott comes in from where they keep the larger animals, and everything about him brightens at seeing Stiles before he remembers that stopping by can now mean emergencies and not just slacking off for a few minutes. “Hey,” he says. “What’s going on?”

Stiles shakes his head. “I just had a question for Doc Deaton.”

Scott reaches out and runs a finger along the kitten’s back. “He must have been happy with you, to let you feed Tiger. Isn’t she adorable?”

“Uh, yeah. Look, why don’t you finish? I have to go make dinner to take to my dad.” Stiles carefully passes Scott the kitten, and hightails it out of the clinic. 

Outside, he can breathe. No one else on the street screams what they’re feeling quite so loud as Scott. It’s just a faint itch, a knowledge of presence. Blindfolded, he’s sure he could point to where everyone on the street is standing. That’s actually not as bad as it would be if he felt them all like Scott, and now he’s going to have to try to see how many of the deputies he can come into contact with as he brings his dad dinner, to see if it’s just Scott or there’s a continuum of volume along the continuum of people he knows.

Stiles gets in the Jeep and buckles himself in and just pauses for a moment, staring blindly out the windshield. Why couldn’t he have stayed himself? Or gotten actually cool superpowers? Why is it just insight? He has plenty of that without the prickling. He is not actually terrible at figuring people out, and this doesn’t seem like it’ll help them survive Gerard and the kanima at all.

He sighs and starts the Jeep and drives home, and makes turkey meatballs and whole wheat spaghetti and douses the whole of it in enough low-sodium jarred pasta sauce that he’s pretty sure his dad will think he’s getting a break from his diet. He takes two medium-ish bowls with lids and fills them and puts them back in the Jeep while the food is still hot, and then drives down to the station.

He can feel his dad as soon as he enters the building, the faint edge of worry and stress. Everyone else is muted, a hum like an appliance left plugged in as opposed to a stereo system. Stiles is okay with that. He can live with that. Of course, he might just be going crazy, the long, long hallucination of Scott being bitten taking on another dimension of weird. Whichever.

His dad looks up when he enters the office, and he’s surprised until Stiles raises the bowls. Stiles puts them on the desk and goes to the office kitchen and grins at the deputy making coffee, the one who registers as barely a buzz.

“So what’s going on with the investigation into the rave?” he asks his dad.

“Stiles,” his dad warns, and Stiles can feel the pride and disappointment and suspicion, and it kills him, absolutely kills him, that his dad can’t trust him any more.

So he puts on his joking face and rolls his eyes and says, “Fine, yeah, police business,” and talks about Chemistry and potentially doing the Science Olympiad if he can get Danny interested. Stiles bolts down his food as fast as he can and excuses himself without ever really allowing his dad to say anything. To anyone who knows him a little bit, this is normal: he just does not ever stop talking.

His dad is sad as Stiles leaves.

At home, Stiles starts up his computer and works on his homework and then starts researching empathy and kanimas and murders in Beacon hills in the past decade and it’s like tabbed browsing was designed specifically for people with ADHD, because he actually manages to make progress on all of them before a presence at his back presses in like an impending apocalypse.

“Hi, Derek.”

There’s a flicker of surprise, and Stiles turns to grin at him. “I’m magic!”

Derek raises one eyebrow. “That’s nice. Find anything out about the kanima’s master?”

“Other than that he was either murdered or thinks he was? Nope. But we’ve got at least a week before he strikes next, and I’ll be able to get my dad’s notes tomorrow. Can we talk about how I’m magic yet?”

Derek flashes his eyes red and growls, “Is it important?”

He’s not actually angry, though. There’s excited anticipation which is probably almost all Stiles and an exasperated fondness with tones of Derek.

It strikes Stiles, quite suddenly, that empathy is probably even more invasive than werewolf noses. “Shit.”

Derek tenses, absolute willingness to throw himself between Stiles and threat perfusing every pore, and it hits Stiles that this is as intense as with Scott, as with his dad, and what does that say about how close they are?

“Empathy, I’m an empath, I can hear or feel or taste feelings and I don’t know how to turn it off and it started last night.”

Derek relaxes, and Stiles would think he was nearly indolent except for the tension still swirling in him. “Can you feel everyone?”

“It’s like a buzzing. Most people, I can tell they’re there but nothing else. Doc Deaton was more weirdly serene than usual. You and Scott and my dad I can feel a lot more detail.”

Derek feels a sprig of hope, quickly quashed. “Do you think you could feel the kanima’s master?”

Stiles feels his own heart fall. Of course Derek is goal oriented. Stiles is probably getting Derek’s emotions so strongly because he’s so stupidly obsessed, or because Derek’s around so much. The idea that anyone is emotionally close to Derek ‘my whole family is dead and I’m an asshole’ Hale is completely ludicrous. “No, probably not, not unless we managed to capture Jackson again. I’m not sure even then - most people are just buzzes.”

Derek frowns, but he’s curious and not annoyed and it’s horrible and fascinating to know what’s going on behind all the glowering. “What differentiates the people who are more than that?”

“I’m working with a pretty small sample size here. I’m not really close to any of my dad’s deputies, and I think being close to someone is a large part of it.”

“Just physical closeness?”

Why does he feel like he’s being interrogated? He’s got the feelings-magic now: that should totally even the scale, but it doesn’t, it really doesn’t, he’s going to blurt his stupid idiot crush and Derek’s going to laugh at him, or, worse, be annoyed and dismissive and wow this is all terrible and fuck magic. Stiles’ leg is jittering. “No.”

There’s a flicker of something scared and sharp from both of them. Both of them? Wow. Fuck, wow. Stiles takes a nervous breath. “I think it’s just people I care about, who care about me. Control group, I guess, will be Lydia on Monday.”

Derek nods, his face impassive, but Stiles feels the thread of jealousy, and wow this is not consensual communication at all. They don’t even like each other a lot of the time, they’ve never talked about the undercurrent of . . . whatever it is. Stiles slaps a hand over his eyes, as if that’ll help. “You should probably go. I really can’t turn it off.”

Confusion, curiosity, dawning horror and embarrassment, concern, and he’s still not leaving. He’s coming closer, saying, “Hey, it’s okay,” and then he takes Stiles’ wrist to draw it away from his face, and Stiles’ feels the echo of it in his bones.

He draws in a sharp breath and meets Derek’s eyes. “No, it’s really not, because you deserve privacy - you hide out in the woods or in a health hazard so you can have privacy and I’m telling you right now that you’re not getting any privacy right now and we’re not having this conversation until we’re actually safe, that was the plan, and I shouldn’t know this stuff unless you tell me and it’s really not fair or okay.”

Derek hasn’t let him go, and Stiles feels his hand like a brand. The horror’s gone, the embarrassment merely a dull roar, the confusion cleared to fondness. “Stiles, it’s okay.”

Stiles stares at him helplessly, then leans forward to press his lips to Derek’s. He expects a recoil, a realization that they have other things they need to do, that this is a terrible idea because they don’t have any parameters in place. What he gets is a soft noise, and Derek’s lips parting on his, and desire that slams into his like a storm.

When Stiles tears himself away, he’s breathing hard. “We never talked about any of this!”

Derek grins incandescently. “And now we don’t have to.”

Stiles grips the arms of the computer chair, his own annoyance warring with Derek’s effervescence. “You are such an asshole.”

This time, it’s Derek who closes the distance between them, and the only points of contact are his hand on Stiles’ wrist and their mouths on each other. Tentatively, Derek swipes his tongue along Stiles’ lower lip, and Stiles makes a choked sound and brings his free hand up to the back of Derek’s head.

Derek’s hand tightens on Stiles’ wrist, then loosens deliberately, and he’s sliding his hand up Stiles’ arm to his elbow to haul him upright. Wow, okay, are they doing this? Yeah, they’re doing this. Standing, they can press against each other, plane to plane and pulse to pulse and each point of contact is a small sun. They’re doing this, and Stiles is probably going to embarrass himself. But Derek won’t care: Stiles can feel the want pouring off him, and something else that he can’t, that he refuses to name, that calls out to the same nameless thing in Stiles.

Stiles wraps an arm around Derek’s waist and draws him closer, because feeling with this new sense is one thing, but he wants to feel Derek against him. He’s half-hard already, and his dick twitches in his jeans as Stiles grinds against him.

They stand there kissing and Stiles wonders how anyone ever stands all this wanting. It feels like his skin is on fire. Derek breaks away from his mouth to kiss his neck and trace his tongue over Stiles’s pulse and bite, and wow Stiles did not know that the nerve endings in his neck were connected directly to his dick. The high-pitched noise that comes from his mouth would be mortifying if it weren’t for the fact that he can feel that Derek likes it. “Are we really doing this? What are we doing? Are you sure you want this? We should really be in bed.”

Derek doesn’t respond with words, which is honestly okay with Stiles because the only words Derek knows are sarcastic ones. Derek manhandles him to the bed and werewolf strength is seriously the best thing because they’re both lying on it and still making out and only their feet are hanging out over the edge.

They’re both wearing too many clothes. Stiles reaches for the hem of Derek’s henley and pulls up, and Derek stops kissing him long enough to pull it off in one sinuous motion and throw it across the room. There’s all that bare smooth skin and Stiles wants his hands all over it, wants to touch every inch of him, and he can, he’s allowed to, Derek wants it. Everything is awesome.

Derek is running his hands over Stiles’ sides, but staying above his shirt, just tracing ribs and softness through his T-shirt. He’s hard against Stiles’ thigh, and kissing him like there’s no tomorrow, but he’s not taking it farther, not pushing. Not escalating, despite the fact that Stiles can feel desperation leashed in him like a wild thing.

If Derek’s not going to do it, Stiles is going to have to do it himself, and magic is amazing for letting him know that it isn’t unwelcome as he shoves Derek away to strip off his shirt. Derek falls on his neck, licking and sucking and biting, and Stiles wonders if it’s a Derek thing or a werewolf thing because God his brain never shuts up. He digs his nails into Derek’s back, and the shock of pleasure it brings him is startling and one of the biggest turn-ons in the entire universe.

Stiles kisses Derek’s shoulder open-mouthed. “Touch me. Please touch me.”

Derek’s hand is on his hip, bruising-hard. He drops his head to let his forehead rest against Stiles’ neck. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

Stiles replies with absolute certainty, “You won’t. But you’re killing me, you’re really killing me, pants are terrible.”

Derek lets out half a broken laugh and kisses Stiles’ neck again.

“Let me show you how terrible pants are.” That sounded way sexier in his head, but his head is broken and abuzz and Derek likes it as Stiles starts undoing his jeans. He’s going commando, of course he’s going commando, and even the idea is nearly dizzying in intensity, never mind the reality.

He pulls the zipper down slowly, and his fingers brush Derek’s dick, and empathy is the best magic power in the world because he can feel that pleasure all the way down his spine to his balls. He grabs Derek, fills his hand with him, and strokes firmly. They both moan. Stiles flicks his thumb over the head of his dick, gathering the pre-come beaded there and using it to slick his way a little. Stiles wonders what it tastes like, if it’s any different than his own.

It occurs to him that he’s allowed to find out. Derek hasn’t been consenting with his words, and everyone should use their words more, and he’d really love for Derek to actually come out and say that he wants to fuck him, but this, this yearning lust, this is good, too, and it doesn’t fade as Stiles leans down and swipes his head over Derek’s dick.

Derek’s dick twitches, and he arches his back.

“You like that? I’m going to keep doing that. Let’s just - your pants are in the way,” he babbles as he shoves at Derek’s pants. Derek rolls to his back and lifts his hips to easy Stiles’ way, and finally his dick is free, and it’s just amazing because it’s Derek and he’s hard for him, hard and leaking slightly.

He takes Derek in his mouth and swirls his tongue around the tip and Derek arches his hips. Stiles licks his way down, wanting to take in as much as he can, wanting to swallow all of Derek down because he’s his. His gag reflex announces itself really vociferously and Stiles backs off and pants for a minute because that was kind of unpleasant.

But looking, just looking, that’s fun, too, seeing the contrast of the skin of his hands against the skin of Derek’s dick and inner thighs, the way Derek is all drawn taut and clutching the bedspread. He did that, he managed that, Derek’s spread out like this for him, and it’s heady.

Stiles gives Derek’s spit-slicked dick an experimental tug, and it feels good and it looks good, but Derek felt more like his brain was short-circuiting when Stiles’ mouth was on him. Stiles goes down on him again, using his hands on the base, because deep-throating is something that’s apparently going to take practice, and practice means he’ll get to do this again, feel Derek coming apart at the seams under him again. He’s allowed to touch Derek, he’s going to be allowed to keep touching Derek. It’s amazing.

Stiles looks up along Derek’s body, wanting to see what his face looks like as Stiles hollows his cheeks around him and sucks. He can feel it, feel the coursing heat through Derek, but Derek’s face is never undone, except now it is, and Derek looks lust-dazed and unutterably hot.

His eyes are ringed in red and don’t leave Stiles’ face, though they do dart down to where Stiles’ mouth is stretched obscenely around his dick. Stiles can feel his impending orgasm, both magically and from the way his dick twitches, and runs his tongue just under the head.

Derek growls as he comes, and Stiles swallows convulsively because, fuck, he’s coming, too. The echoes of Derek’s orgasm wrench one from Stiles completely untouched and with his pants still on.

Stiles crawls up and sprawls on the bed and pants. Derek turns his head just a bit to look at him, lassitudinous and full of that emotion Stiles won’t name, and then his nostrils flare and he looks down disbelievingly.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Next time, you’re touching me. And we’re taking our shoes off.”


End file.
